No Cost of Living Adjustment for Social Security. Time to buy votes!

Bernie Sanders, the sole admitted Socialist in Congress (he is referred to as an “independent” but has voted with Democrats 98% of the time), and Peter DeFazio (D-OR) want to spend $13 billion on giving Social Security recipients one-time payments of $250. This is because there will likely be no Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for 2010. A similar payment was authorized in the $787 billion stimulus bill.

The Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus bill singed into law in February authorized a one-time $250 payment, made earlier this year, to senior citizens, disabled veterans and disabled people living on Social Security benefits.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, and Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, introduced legislation in Congress last month to give Social Security recipients another $250 one-time payment next year in lieu of a cost-of-living increase.

President Barack Obama yesterday endorsed the plan through an extension of a program created under the economic stimulus legislation.

Effective in January of this year, Social Security beneficiaries received a 5.8 percent cost-of-living increase, the biggest since 1982.

In other words, even though the Consumer Price Index (CPI) indicates that prices are going down; even though the increase in Social Security benefits this year far-outstrips the increase in health care costs; even though this is the first time since the inception of the COLA that it did not lead to an increase in benefits, the people in Congress want to give seniors more money, anyway.

The CPI dropped 2.1%. Health care costs went up 3.6%. Social Security payments went up 5.8%! The deflation in the markets has been a net benefit to seniors, and these politicians want to give them more!

There’s really only one reason for this: Democrats are buying votes. They have seen all the negative press about health care “reform” in regard to medicare. Now the Democrats need to reassure those voters that the Democrats are still for them.

The economy is in recession. Businesses are cutting jobs. The outlook remains bleak despite the Dow reaching 10,000 and over $1 trillion in new government spending on “stability” and “stimulus.” The answer for all of this is not more government spending: The answer is for the government to get the Hell out of the way.

Pandering can be the business and practice of any politician and every political party. We, as voters, need to recognize this and shun those politicians, like Bernie Sanders and Pete DeFazio, who use our tax dollars to buy votes. If we keep electing such monsters, we will continue to see huge deficits, the weakening of the dollar and the unsustainable economic losses we have endured.